In the past, I’ve been more than willing to criticize trade shows, suggest changes, and express our mutual uncertainty as to what the role of trade shows should be and how they should perform that role. Even recognizing that the winter Long Beach Agenda typically has lower attendance than summer, I was surprised at the low attendance and the brands that did not attend. I also heard from more than the usual number of brands that attended only because they got free booth space.

Among the brands I noticed that were not there were NHS/Santa Cruz, Powell, Stance, Spy, Volcom, Billabong, RUCA, GoPro and Sole Technology. Perhaps some of them are not usually January participants anyway. Some are busy with other, probably more pressing, issues.

The consumer day was cancelled. One would assume that was because not enough brands supported it. That might makes sense, it was suggested to me, because it’s too soon after the holidays for the kids to be enthusiastic. Concrete Wave founder Michael Brooke had an interesting take on the show. Here’s a link to his blog.

The consensus among most of the people I talked with was that January Agenda had run its course. It wasn’t just a handful of people who said that. And the brands that had already spoken with their feet are echoing the same sentiment.

This is not like when ASR, having completely lost touch with reality, staggered to its end and self destructed. The value proposition of this show has simply run its course.

Aaron Levant and his then partner, Seth Haber, were prescient in starting Agenda. Seth left a couple of years ago, and Aaron didn’t require any additional prescience to get the hell out of Dodge now. As has been publicly announced, he’s joining a startup on March 1 that’s not in our industry. There’s a lot of that going around. I will look forward to hearing what he’s involved in.

There were three interesting things at the show. The first was the number of brands I’d never heard of before. Other people had the same comment. Second was the “booth” from Rebel Eight Clothing with a coffin and basic funeral parlor looking set up with lots of roses bemoaning the “death of wholesale.”

I feel their pain. And being something of a contrarian in both my investing and how I think about our market, I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps this wasn’t an indication of the bottom in the decline of the wholesale market. In truth, I don’t have any idea.

The business model I’ve been flogging for years has its genesis in my uncertainty about how things are going to evolve. I’m going to talk about that in a presentation I’m doing at the Know Show this week. Probably should have called my speech, “I Have No Idea,” but that didn’t seem like the best way to draw an audience.

Finally, I saw the Shark Wheel. If you didn’t see it at the show, or weren’t there, or both, you need to look at it. You shouldn’t take my word that the technology and engineering make sense. Read about it on their web site. No, the wheel isn’t square- I had that reaction the first time I saw it. This, if you think it works, is exactly the kind of small risk that could be big I encourage retailers to take. I had a long enough conversation with them to believe they might be onto something. They think, and I probably agree, that skateboarding will be their smallest market.

Back to the issue of what’s going to happen to trade shows. There will be more consumer-focused events I expect. That’s not news to anybody. They would have evolved regardless of what happened to traditional industry trade shows; this is not just an evolution from one to the other.

Traditionally, brands exhibited and retailers came, or were supposed to. Lots of brands and lot of retailers in one place = successful trade show and value in showing up.

For years now, brands and retailers have been getting together outside trade shows. It’s been particularly the case that large brands meet with large retailers outside of show venues. The internet has simultaneously let both brands and retailers do some of the things they used to do at trade shows.

I’m going to use Zumiez as my poster child for how things might evolve.

Zumiez currently has two big events. The first is their 100K (just last week I think) where they get together their top sales people with the heads of the brands they sell for three days of fun, partying, snowboarding, and recognition at Copper Mountain. It’s a great event.

Their second event is Rocktember held this past year in September at their corporate headquarters. All (I think) of their sales people are invited as are many of their newer, smaller brands. It’s fun, networking, education. I see the value of the brands being able to talk to so many of the people who sell their products as huge.

That event is threatening to overwhelm the space at Zumiez’s headquarters.

I don’t know this, but I’d be somewhat stunned if somewhere in Zumiez some group of people isn’t talking about how these events should be expanded, moved, combined, or something. This would be driven partly by Zumiez’s relentless process for finding, grooming, and growing (and dumping if they don’t work) new brands.

We will see more out of those two events, but I don’t know what form it will take. If one were to evolve into something resembling a trade show, or at least what trade shows are becoming, I wouldn’t be surprised.

I suppose the reason I don’t know is because, and Zumiez continues to be a fine example, brands are now retailers and retailers are brands. The traditional trade show model was based on a distinction that no longer exists to the extent it used to and was a rationale shared by mutually dependent, but not competitive, retailers and brands.

What’s the new rationale? When we can answer that, we can begin to know the appropriate format.A

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http://www.jeffharbaugh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/logo_color_640.gif00jeffhttp://www.jeffharbaugh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/logo_color_640.gifjeff2018-01-14 12:46:332018-01-15 08:12:37Agenda Was Kind of Slow Last Week

Yeah I agree it was definitely kind of dead but not entirely. One thing that was common was people who were there who still have energy and still are looking for more. I don’t think Agenda is a “State of the Industry” as some look at it, it’s just a show that lost it’s way and it’s original inspirations it seems. Also who’s idea was it to cram the only skate area into the back corner like a dog shitting park? Dudes were understandably going outside to the massive outdoor area that apparently was only for food trucks, to gap the stairs and stuff that was way more fun to do and watch than the planned skate area. I think that summed up the priorities of the event for everyone who actually still loves skateboarding for skateboarding, and a lack of that love it’s what they’ve been missing in the equation that has led them astray. At least, that’s how it seems to me. But, what do I know, I’m doing something to add real value to skateboarding, not suck the life out of it financially and then wonder why it’s not poppin’ anymore… lol, stupid greedy idiots, they need to go skate.

Sean, you seem a bit angry and depressed. And maybe you should be. I’ve had moments like that in this industry myself. But let’s try and focus on what we can do to improve the situation. Agenda doesn’t seem to be working for a lot of people. Fine. Now what? We need some kind of place to get together to do? What? Network? Education? Yes, probably both. Figure out how to change the industry as the circumstances of the economy and preferences of consumer change? Yup. Have some fun? I’m for that. Meet people with different perspectives and experience, preferably not from our industry? Yes! Yes! Yes! And face difficult issues head on.
Thanks for the comment,
J.

Hey Jeff. First of all thanks for stopping by our booth during Agenda and conversate with us, i really appreciate it and your words of experience are ringing constantly in my head!
For us, as first timers of the Agenda experience, we don’t quite understand the difference between the previous shows and the last one. I surely though can see the difference between our modest expectations and the results of our attendance.
Since we studied the exhibitors and attendees of the previous shows we set some goals, and the results are bittersweet based on two parameters:

-Almost all the retailers and distributors that visited us understood the value that we can give to their businesses by offering a new product and giving them better profit margins. Therefore we got our first orders from the US, Europe and Asia.
-As you mentioned, there were some retailers that did not attend, so this impacted our results too.

I and my co-founder identified the mistakes that we did and we will work to fix them since this is the only way to success.

p.s: I am an optimistic person, so i won’t even mention the treatment that we had from the Agenda and their contractor for labor and logistics (GES) people. All i can say is that they treated us like cash cows (bring them in, cash in as much as you can, and don’t care later).

Hi Andreas,
Good to meet you too. I expect the show was valuable to you precisely because it was your first time. Make sure you are in regular with the retailers who are going to try your product. I might even suggest a trip to visit them or even deliver the product to them and help them think about how to merchandise your technology. You’d learn a lot. See you again, but maybe not at winter Agenda. Your comments about GES are not unusual.
Thanks,
J.

Hi Joe,
Not certain what you mean by the VF model. But I’d note that VF is a public company and Boardriders is not, which is a good thing for a company that owns a bunch of brands that have been abused and misused over some years. Being private and not having growth pressure is a reason why things might be better for all these brands.

See you in Denver perhaps?
J.

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Jeff Harbaugh has more than 20 years spent developing strategies to respond to changing market conditions, in-depth, objective knowledge of the action sports/outdoor/youth culture industry and skills to help you manage growth and make the transition from entrepreneur to manager.